Center for Pioneer Life

This past week Trish and I had a wonderful week at the Center for Pioneer Life outside Burnsville, North Carolina.

The Center is a project of the Strawbridge and Martha Wilson Young Foundation and seeks to preserve our understanding of life in the region in the mid-nineteenth century through interpretive and educational programs.

On Monday all of the Middle School students from Yancey County were bussed to Mountain Heritage High School where I got to tell them stories and suggest ways they could find their own family stories.

Fourth Graders visit the Center for Pioneer Life.

In the afternoon we began to have the Fourth Graders from the county come out to the Center itself for stories and a tour of the Homestead.  The Homestead site centers around an 1850’s log cabin that was actually the home of some of the Young family ancestors.  The cabin was for all the world like the house in which my mother was born and grew up, the place where I would go to visit my grandparents as a child in Haywood County.

Sleeping loft in the cabin...just like the place where my mother and her six little sisters slept as children.

After an adult workshop on Tuesday and more Fourth Grade visits in Wednesday, we concluded our visit with a performance in the Town Center at Burnsville.  There were a half dozen people there who were old friends of mine from school days in Waynesville.  It was like a home visit.

We returned to the island at the end of the week to find slow progress being made in the house recovery.  The big problem now is that the road north is still closed after a storm last weekend overwashed Highway 12 again.  But, in spite of frustrations, we were still greeted by a magnificent burning sunset.  See why we live here!

Our sunset over the Pamlico Sound.